Rather then start a new thread I thought it best to continue on here....

I've been riding for about a month now, starting off on a 40km Saturday morning bunch ride form the LBS and have added an extra 1 or two rides in during the week. I cant say that I have unbearable pain after 90minutes but I have plans on doing a 90km ride in 4 weeks and am concerned about my current saddle.....especially considering that for the first time last night after about 20km I felt a little cold in the 'nether region', stood up to grab a handful for a re-adjustment of the tackle and ouch! The knob was bordering on numb/painful/burning sensation. The saddle had seemed to cut off the blood supply to my old fella. So off to investigate a new saddle.

I've got 2 pairs of nicks, Netti and Bontrager which I assume aren't bottom of the range. I was wearing the Netti nicks last night which are new. I have the standard saddle on the Giant Defy which is branded on the bottom of the saddle as a Velo 1205.

I've followed the youtube instructions on how to measure my sit bones. I did the cardboard/chalk thing 4 times and got 120mm, 105mm, 112mm & 114mm. So I guess I'll do my calculations based on 112-114mm. I recall I need to add around 25mm to this to find a saddle width.

Where do I start look at actual saddles? and considering my restricted blood flow issue should I look at a saddle with a big cutout? How do I go about trying a saddle out? Most of the LBS I've been into only stock a couple of saddles and i assume i'd need to try it out for at least 90mins.

If you're going numb you're probably sitting on the narrow part of the saddle. Start by checking that the saddle hasn't slipped back and fix if it has - this is very common. Otherwise try moving the saddle forward 5-10mm.

Last edited by RonK on Tue Oct 07, 2014 9:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Shadyone wrote:Rather then start a new thread I thought it best to continue on here....

I've been riding for about a month now, starting off on a 40km Saturday morning bunch ride form the LBS and have added an extra 1 or two rides in during the week. I cant say that I have unbearable pain after 90minutes but I have plans on doing a 90km ride in 4 weeks and am concerned about my current saddle.....especially considering that for the first time last night after about 20km I felt a little cold in the 'nether region', stood up to grab a handful for a re-adjustment of the tackle and ouch! The knob was bordering on numb/painful/burning sensation. The saddle had seemed to cut off the blood supply to my old fella. So off to investigate a new saddle.

I've got 2 pairs of nicks, Netti and Bontrager which I assume aren't bottom of the range. I was wearing the Netti nicks last night which are new. I have the standard saddle on the Giant Defy which is branded on the bottom of the saddle as a Velo 1205.

I've followed the youtube instructions on how to measure my sit bones. I did the cardboard/chalk thing 4 times and got 120mm, 105mm, 112mm & 114mm. So I guess I'll do my calculations based on 112-114mm. I recall I need to add around 25mm to this to find a saddle width.

Where do I start look at actual saddles? and considering my restricted blood flow issue should I look at a saddle with a big cutout? How do I go about trying a saddle out? Most of the LBS I've been into only stock a couple of saddles and i assume i'd need to try it out for at least 90mins.

My experience was similar when I first started. My flag pole and sand bags would go numb after about 30 minutes of riding. The problem disappeared totally when I switched to an SMP Dynamic. I believe it is the cutout that makes the difference. As Jesmol suggested, try a few different Specialized test saddles. I recently tried a Specialized Romin as I was getting pain on the left sit bone which I thought was related to the SMP. The Romin was a comfy saddle but my sit bone pain I have since found out is due to some sort of growth on around the sit bone area. I may purchase a Romin once I get the issue sorted.

To just follow up on my progress... I've clocked about 650km now, in just under 3 months. Trying to ride 3 times/week, averaging 90 mins/ride. I also added a memory-foam seat cover, just because they were going cheap and I thought it couldn't hurt.

Did a 20km ride today and didn't even feel it. From memory 30km - my usual ride - results in some very mild discomfort towards the end of the ride, but I think even that is starting to dissipate. My last 50km ride was still agony for the last 10km, but that was a big ride after a week or more lay-off - probably a silly thing to do in hindsight. I expect over the next few weeks that a 30km ride won't even register on the backside discomfort scale.

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